Moroccan woman collapses at employers’ trial after alleged 17-hour workdays for €500 a month
A 49-year-old Moroccan woman who says she worked up to 17 hours a day for 500 euros a month collapsed Thursday at the Bobigny court. Her former employers were standing trial on charges of exploitation amounting to modern slavery.
On Thursday, November 12, “Mouna” appeared before the 15th criminal court chamber in Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis. She had come to testify against the couple who employed her for two years when she collapsed during the hearing. The Moroccan woman had to be carried out on a stretcher, reports Le Parisien.
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The couple had brought the undocumented Moroccan woman to France to care for the employer’s mother, who was severely disabled after a stroke. According to the account presented at the hearing, she worked 17 hours a day, seven days a week, for a monthly salary of 500 euros.
Her days were devoted to caring for and assisting the elderly woman, and her nights were regularly interrupted. Every two hours, she had to wake up to change the sick woman’s incontinence pads. Mouna says she lived this way for two years, with no weekly rest or leave.
The couple is on trial for offences amounting to modern slavery. In light of the working conditions described to the judges, prosecutors called for each of the two defendants to receive a three-year prison sentence, including two years suspended.
